Women and Children First
~ A Perspective ~
The controversy continues to surround the question “Are Men Necessary?” There have been many articles, news commentary, and debates since the book of the same title appeared last year. When I saw the news about the debate held in Canada this year, I thought how demeaning it was to men. Considering the title, they did not even have a man on stage.
Even though the book is about feminism, I found the topic insulting to both men and women. I don’t believe that feminism built itself up by making other people smaller, let alone unnecessary.
Most people I mention the debate to dismiss it as humor and not to take it seriously but given the coverage of the subject it seems a lot of people are taking it seriously. What is ignored by their reference to humor is that humor serves a purpose of masking the dark side of life to make life easier to bear. I don't find any humor in it at all.
What have we become when entertainment consists of reaching down into the dark pit of nihilism to find a way to destroy the dignity of half the population of the planet?
We are living in a time when institutions, principles, and people are turned inside out, redefined, transformed or destroyed to reach some culturally high pinnacle of the correct modern utopia. A place where being different is unequal and not acceptable. Everything has to be perfect but at the expense of some being imperfect.
It seems that everyday values, morals, and traditions are being taken apart and what worked in the past is now discarded as being culturally unacceptable, oppressive, or irrelevant. This critical process occurs to allow for new perspectives to influence changes in our society to establish new norms but today, I sense that it is a form of nihilism accelerating so fast that no one can take anything for granted or believe in anything for long. Pretty soon you won’t be able to believe in yourself.
I have asked myself many times: what would I say to an audience of seemingly educated people if I were invited to stand for the affirmative? What a demeaning position to be in. Do I go up and defend myself from a ridiculous form of intellectual buffoonery?
It’s not like I have to argue that men are better or even superior to women, I just have to make a case that men are necessary and that my life as a man has purpose and meaning.
It is something of a dilemma since the topic cannot be approached intelligently. To call a class of human beings unessential for failing to meet someone else's idea of who is necessary is the height of narcissism. Not a very inclusive concept. I don’t think I would spend time recounting the role of men in history or that the males of the species have something to contribute to society and the upbringing of children. Citing all the accomplishments and sacrifices that men have made throughout history would not matter because the definition of history itself being revised to reflect a new history. One without men I suppose. No that would be a display of weakness.
I assume that the audience would know this history and dismiss it due to its failure to accommodate the post-historical society. The one based on fiction rather than facts.
Since men can differ from each other as much as men do from women, it means that I also could not present myself as the spokesman for all men. I would be speaking only for myself.
So what would I say to argue the affirmative of "Are men are necessary?"
I would pick one story which describes the best and the worst in men: “Titanic.” It is a great story of love, terror, and tragedy in which the passengers and crew, gripped in the knowledge that the ship was going to sink alone in the dark Atlantic and that they were going to die.
In the recent movie, the love interest is Jack and Rose. Incidentally, they were created to provide a love story to humanizes the cold, dark, deadly tragedy.
Who doesn't love a story of how young lovers, overcoming money and power stay pure and true to each other? We cheer when Rose is fighting off her greedy, money possessed fiance and turn her back on the fortune for the man she loves. We cheer again we see them bravely fighting the panic-stricken crew by freeing the steerage passengers.
When the captain realizes that the ship is sinking, he is informed that there are not enough lifeboats for all the passengers. He gives instructions to the crew to lower lifeboats. The crew gathering up the passengers in life jackets began the loading process with the cry over the bullhorn “Women and Children First.”
Rose won’t leave Jack even to save her life. There were other women who made that same decision. They decided to die with their husbands and go down with the ship. Meanwhile, as the women and children are loaded into the lifeboats, the men stand around waiting for their terrifying confrontation with the impersonal force of nature. It was just a matter of time. Some retire to the bar while some to find ways to get into the boats. A few succeed. Some are turned away as gunfire erupted to keep the men back from the boats. But most of them just understood why they were left behind as they watched their families climb into the boats for safety. They understood that life has to go on and that the women and children represented the future. They accepted that in circumstances like this that they were expendable. In the last moments before sinking, the survivors in the lifeboats could hear the sound of the ships quartet playing "Nearer my God to Thee."
Captain Edward John Smith remained on the bridge to the end. Only after he was sure that all measures to save the passengers were exhausted, did he release the crew to jump overboard. As Captain, he chose to stand on the bridge and be sucked into that cold black ocean that would draw the ship to the bottom of the sea. His body was never recovered.
Meanwhile, J Bruce Ismay, Chairman and Managing Director of White Star Lines sneaked into one of the lifeboats and survived. Standing 6’ 4” and wrapped in a woman’s shawl he was hard to miss. Survivors reported that he used his bodyguards to push women aside to get a seat in the boat.
Ben Hecht’s poem about J. Bruce Ismay contrasts the cowardly Chairman of White Star lines with the Captain as the ship was sinking and demonstrates the best and the worst of men.
Master and Man
by Ben Hecht
The Captain stood where a
Captain should
For the Law of the Sea is grim;
The Owner romped while the ship was swamped
And no law bothered him.
The Captain stood where the Captain should
When a Captain's ship goes down
But the Owner led when the women fled,
For an Owner must not drown.
The Captain sank as a man of Rank,
While the Owner turned away;
The Captain's grave was his bridge and brave,
He earned his seaman's pay.
To hold your place in the ghastly face of Death on the Sea at Night
Is a Seaman's job, but to flee with the mob
Is an Owner's Noble Right.
After the ship sinks below the surface, Jack and Rose miraculously are forced to the surface as the air in the ship escapes. There, among other survivors, they find a door floating to keep them afloat. But there is only room for one.
As we sit in the silent theater with our eyes glistening, we see Rose atop the raft while Jack floats in the 28-degree water waiting to die.
The rest of the 2226 passengers remaining on the Titanic waited anxiously for the end. Of the total passengers and crew who died, there were 1680 men, 110 women and 56 of the 400 children on board survived.
The plaque on the Women’s Titanic Memorial in Washington D.C reads:
TO THE BRAVE MEN
WHO PERISHED
IN THE WRECK
OF THE TITANIC
APRIL 15 1912
THEY GAVE THEIR
LIVES THAT WOMEN
AND CHILDREN
MIGHT BE SAVED
It makes me wonder if the impact of the sinking of the Titanic would be different if instead of the command “women and children first” it was changed to “every man for himself.”
If you do believe that men are unnecessary perhaps you are associating with the wrong ones.